Fear the Walking Dead Season 6 Premiere Recap: The End Is the Beginning

In Season 6 of Fear the Walking Dead, the group struggles to survive apart from one another while trying to hold onto who they are and what they once believed in. In the premiere, “The End Is the Beginning,” a stranger helps Morgan outrun a bounty hunter.

Emile LaRoux

At the beginning of the episode, a man named Walter stumbles into Emile LaRoux’s camp begging for help. Emile (Demetrius Grosse) gives Walter some beans — his brother’s recipe — before greeting a barking dog who runs up to Emile. Walter tells Emile that the dog has been chasing him, unaware the hound called Rufus was simply herding the man to Emile. Emile wastes no time chopping off Walter’s head and taking the key attached to a necklace Walter had been wearing. After stuffing Walter’s zombified head into a box labeled with his name, Emile is contacted over his walkie by Virginia, who hires the bounty hunter to track down one Morgan Jones, unaware if he is dead or alive.

Meanwhile, an injured Morgan sporting a thick beard and red eyes hides from Virginia’s Pioneers in a broken-down limo. Once it’s safe, Morgan steps outside with his staff and becomes upset when a walker moves right by him, not perceiving Morgan to be a meal. After telling the walker, “I’m right here,” and killing it (proved difficult thanks to the gunshot wound Virginia gave him a few weeks prior) Morgan briefly stops at the empty water tower he’s been using for shelter before venturing back out into a nearby town seeking supplies. There, a former Marine named Isaac (Michael Abbott Jr.) saves Morgan from a group of walkers, remarking that he thought Morgan was one of the undead because of the way the reanimated corpses simply walked away from Morgan instead of attacking him. Inside of a shop, Isaac also checks Morgan’s wound, commenting on the bad smell and saying it’s gangrene. Morgan tries to get Isaac to leave, saying the woman who shot him is still looking for him.

Outside, Emile and Rufus appear looking for Morgan. Morgan attempts to stop Isaac from going out to speak with Emile, but Isaac goes anyway. After looking at a drawn photo of Morgan, Isaac lies to Emile and says he hasn’t seen him. Rufus signals that Morgan is inside, and when Emile takes a look he only finds Morgan’s blanket and accuses Isaac of lying. Isaac says that Morgan attacked him and he killed him, and his undead body is probably wandering down the street. After using his ax to tear apart a few potential hiding places in the shop and failing to find Morgan, Emile leaves. When he’s gone, Isaac goes out the back in search of Morgan and finds him unconscious nearby.

Isaac

Morgan wakes up back at the tower with Isaac telling him he needs to remove the bullet that remains embedded in Morgan’s chest. Morgan asks Isaac how he found his hideout and the other man explains there were coordinates written in his bag and he took a chance. Isaac admits to Morgan that he needs help with his pregnant wife, saying he can’t get back to her after a bunch of walkers cut him off. Morgan gives him a gun he found, Isaac supplying a couple of bullets, and tells him to go. Isaac tells him that two shots isn’t enough, but Morgan could walk them right through the group of walkers. He also admits that he knew who Morgan was after seeing one of the tapes he filmed and left at a truck stop. Morgan says he doesn’t do that anymore and tells Isaac to leave. Isaac points the gun at Morgan, apologizing and saying he’s out of options.

Suddenly, the tower begins to collapse thanks to Emile chaining it up to his truck and essentially yanking it down. Morgan wakes up to Isaac killing nearby walkers and calls out to him when he sees Emile walking up. Morgan shoots Emile in the arm and he escapes with Isaac in Emile’s truck. After they pull over, Morgan tells Isaac he’s going back because the tower has to be salvageable and that it’s not for him. When Isaac asks who it’s for, Morgan reveals that someone saved him after Virginia left him to die. They killed the walkers that were surrounding Morgan and when he woke up, his wound had been stitched up and only a note was left that reads: “You don’t know me, but I heard your message. You need to do the same. You still have things left to do,” in response to Morgan’s message “to live, just live.”

Isaac convinces Morgan to help him by telling him that whoever Morgan’s tower was for, they’d be safer where he and his wife are hiding out, he just needs Morgan to help get him to his family. They ditch the truck and make there way through the woods, Morgan explaining the tower was for Grace, who Morgan learned was pregnant the night he got shot. Isaac realizes Virginia (or “Ginny”) split them up. Isaac reveals he used to be one of Virginia’s rangers but that he ran away from her. He saw Morgan’s tape while on patrol, how he was “giving away what Ginny was charging people their freedom for,” and Isaac realized he didn’t what his child to grow up paying Virginia’s cost of living, so they ran away to follow the path of the Good Samaritans.

Final Face-Off

Isaac finally gets Morgan to where his wife, Rachel, is at, which ends up being a dried-out lake that sits within the borders of a broken dam, with an unwelcome horde of walkers between them and the front door. Morgan comments Virginia is going to find the place, but Isaac says no one could get through the walls once the gate is fortified. Isaac gives Morgan a bag of supplies Rachel needs and says he’s taking the longer route through the mountains, knowing it will take him a couple more days to get back to his wife. Plans quickly change as Morgan walks through the group of walkers but collapses, crying out in pain and attracting a walker’s attention. Isaac appears and shoots the walker before it can bite Morgan, urging Morgan to keep going. Instead, Morgan tells the walkers he’s right there, choosing to dispatch all of the undead, with Isaac’s help.

After taking out the walkers, Isaac leads Morgan to Rachel, telling him that this is a safe, hidden place with water and soil rich with silt. Morgan resists the idea of building a new life there himself but believes Isaac and Rachel can start a community. He thinks his purpose might not have been the tower, but getting Isaac back to his wife and child. Isaac shows Morgan that he was bit during a previous outing and has been living on bowered time, saying he brought Morgan here because of his and the others’ message on how they can all help each other to live and survive. He needs Morgan to stay to help rebuild.

Emile and Rufus show up and Morgan goes to sacrifice himself to protect Isaac and Rachel, who is in labor. He tells Isaac to take care of his family as well as Morgan’s family, to find the others, and bring them back here. While facing off with Emile, Morgan says he’ll make it easy if the bounty hunter agrees to leave Isaac and Rachel alone. Emile agrees, but before he can cut Morgan’s head off with his ax, Isaac appears and saves Morgan before he’s knocked to the ground. Morgan and Emile fight, which ends with Morgan cutting Emile’s head off with his own ax, but not before Emile reopened Morgan’s wound. Morgan passes out after Isaac goes to check on his wife and baby.

Morgan Jones is Dead

Morgan wakes up a couple of days later and sees that Isaac has removed the bullet and patched him up. Rachel, holding their newborn daughter, tells Morgan they named her after him. Morgan wants to thank Isaac, but he realizes through Rachel’s sudden tears that Isaac is already gone. After visiting Isaac’s grave, Morgan finds Emile’s zombified head and spots Emile’s necklace with the key attached and takes it. When a walker begins stumbling towards Morgan, Morgan tosses his staff to the side and uses Emile’s ax to cut its head off.

Elsewhere, Virginia roles up with her rangers to a line of dead walkers piled up along the road. There’s a box left behind with “Morgan Jones” scrawled on the top. Virginia lifts the lid, expecting to see Emile’s package containing Morgan’s head, but is shocked to see it’s actually Emile’s reanimated head. Virginia speaks into her walkie, telling Morgan that her plan still works as long as Morgan’s people think he’s dead, and that if Morgan attempts to contact his people to let them know he’s alive, she’ll kill them one by one. Morgan, who is watching through binoculars and riding a horse, replies: “Morgan Jones is dead. And you are dealing with somebody else now.”

At the end of the episode, a man is spray-painting the side of a beached submarine with “The End Is the Beginning” as he and another man wait for someone to meet them. They discuss the importance of “the key” but end up leaving when a walker shows up, knowing more will be coming.